


“What Common Mistakes Are You Making Over And Over Again?” (Number 3 will SHOCK you)

by rowanthestrange_yugihell



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Fun With Reincarnation, Gen, It’s Less Fun Than It Sounds, Non-Graphic Reference To Suicide, See I Did Warn You, Well I Say Fun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-12
Updated: 2017-04-12
Packaged: 2018-10-18 04:17:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10609110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rowanthestrange_yugihell/pseuds/rowanthestrange_yugihell
Summary: In which clickbait causes Yugi a greater than average amount of stress when he discovers that Kaiba might not have been Set’s only reincarnation.





	

**Author's Note:**

> ([Inspired by this post](https://yugihell.tumblr.com/post/159493433692/hiramiyugioh-isnt-it-interesting-that-theres))

* * *

  


Yugi’s learned about magic from cards and spirits, mysterious figures and museums. 

This is the first time it’s come from a Buzzfeed article.

There’s useful stuff among the endless clickbait sometimes. Usually Yugi just lets the information find its way to him - tournament notices, strategy ideas, memes. He doesn’t like giving them the ad revenue, not after all the times something they’ve written has caused a swarm of paparazzi to overtake the shop. 

He’s waiting for the day when he gets to write ’16 Buzzfeed Articles That Meant I Couldn’t Leave My House’. 

The offending article is in-between one with their ridiculous theory that Seto Kaiba’s secretly disappeared, and one that is just Yugi’s hair photoshopped onto different cacti (one of the kinder memes all things considered).

’10 Famous People And Their Past Lives’. Yugi’s eyes catch on it immediately. It’s just cashing in on the trend of historical celebrity lookalikes and he knows that. But Kaiba’s face is in the thumbnail, and it’ll give him some peace of mind to see it’s just another thing arguing that Keanu Reaves is secretly immortal.

Keanu Reaves is indeed mentioned, as are a few people he doesn’t recognise as he scrolls quickly through the images until he gets to Kaiba.

It’s not the stone tablet, of course it isn’t. No-one who hasn’t seen their life turned upside down with ancient Egyptian magic and card games is going to see Seto’s face in that.

Kaiba’s set against a black and white photo of a young man who looks strikingly familiar. He has the same hair, the same bearing, the same clench to his jaw. But it’s the eyes, Yugi knows those eyes. He can even tell what he’s thinking: ‘Can we get this over with _today_ , some of us have more important things to be doing’.

There’s no more information about the photo, and he starts flicking through the comment section. Most people think that the Kaiba photo is the best one and they’re sick of Keanu Reaves winning these things. A lot of complaining about the lack of sources from interested parties. He really wishes he was doing this on his computer, not his phone.

After a few minutes he finds a relatively new comment from some annoyed history professor who has “done the sourcing for you”. The young man is apparently a Russian named Seton Petrovich, and “should be famous for his amazing work, not for being a doppelgänger”.

Yugi feels his heart sink and searches for the name.

The first thing that comes up is the other article. One of the ideas for where Seto Kaiba might be, says jokingly that he’s invented a time machine and actually _is_ Seton Petrovich and ‘Szeto Deja’. Another image, another clearly similar person, even with the blur from the photograph’s age.

He leaves that worrying development for a moment and leaves the tab open while he looks through links, eventually finding a fairly readable paper entitled Seton Petrovich - The Russian Necromancer. 

Yugi presses his free hand to his face and tries to force back the noise rising in his throat. Even if it _is_ part of everything that’s happened, all of that is over. It’s all finished. This isn’t something to worry about, it’s just extra information. He could have found this out years ago, it doesn’t mean anything that he’s finding it now.

He lets the moan out anyway and pushes the heel of his hand against the painful thudding that’s starting behind his left eye.

Seton Petrovich - The Russian Necromancer. 18 years old. _thud_. Parents died at a young age. _thud_. Brilliant inventor. _thud_. Creations were to be co-opted by the military. _thud_.

Yugi lets himself roll over and lets the sound he makes be absorbed by his pillow. He lies there for a moment, trying to breathe, then forces himself to his feet to get a painkiller. The light from the beautifully sunny day sends a jolt of pain through him. He’s already back to not being able to look in mirrors, he doesn’t need this. For a moment he considers just sending it all to Kaiba and letting it be _his_ problem, and then feels a twist of guilt. As if Kaiba hasn’t already got enough issues, ones that he didn’t exactly help with.

He sips his water slowly as his mind goes over its new daily ‘What if’ ritual. What if you’d told Kaiba? What if he’d said goodbye? What if no-one had to say goodbye at all? Ten minutes to wallow and then back on with the day.

So, Seton. Tried to invent a machine to bring back the dead. Possibly succeeded. The military got involved and Seton refused to assist them. They insisted otherwise. In one night he systematically destroyed his entire works, burned all paper records that could lead to their discovery, and shot himself in the head. 

A shudder runs through him. No, no matter what the idiots on the internet think, Kaiba isn’t dead. Mokuba would’ve told them. He would. He’s sure he would.

Before he can dwell too much on that, he goes back to the second article and starts searching for Szeto Deja.

Believed to be the son of a Chinese woman and a Polish missionary. Catholic preacher and eschatologist. He almost laughs. That definitely doesn’t sound like Kaiba. He’s just being human, seeing patterns in things that aren’t there. Yugi feels a relaxing in his chest from tension he didn’t know he had. Until he looks up what an ‘eschatologist’ is.

_Eschatology: "The part of theology concerned with death, judgment, and the final destiny of the soul and of humankind."_

Oh.

Either exiled or chose self-exile after preaching that the dead would walk again on earth as in heaven. Rumours of magic, almost certainly lies intended to slander. Nothing known of the man’s whereabouts after this period.

They all wanted to bring people back. 

Something clangs in his head and he finds himself looking up a stone tablet, long since moved to a new exhibit somewhere.

There’s barely any information about Pharaoh Set. Possible dates. Hieroglyphs of titles he can’t read. Nothing about his actual life or what he did with it. That Yugi knows he was a High Priest may alone be more than any archeologist does. He doesn’t bother looking up things again, he tried before, back when he was trying to help Atem recover his memories and knows there was nothing.

Yugi finds the image of the tablet and it’s physically painful to look at. He quickly zooms in on the images surrounding Set. He was right, it _is_ that card. 

They _all_ wanted to bring back someone - Set included. 

Imagine you had magic, strong magic, and you hadn’t finished your job. You needed more time, another try. 

What if you needed to keep going until you got it right?

What if you had another lifetime, another year, another day?

What if you could get him back?

Yugi closes the tabs. 'Gallery Home', 'Eschatology - Wik-', '1901 - Preacher On', 'Seton Petrovich', 'Seto Kaiba Missin-', '10 Famous People'.

He’s got to ring Kaiba.

Tomorrow. 

He’ll ring tomorrow.

  
  



End file.
